Mesh++

Mesh++

Mesh++ brings wireless communication, education, and e-commerce to those in need using the most affordable technology available – WiFi.

Start Up Info: There is a drastic lack of networking infrastructure in politically unstable or geographically remote areas, where businesses don’t think they can reliably recoup the large initial cost of construction. Our goal is to bring communication to these areas using a network of affordable solar-powered nodes that communicate via WiFi. Nodes (<$20, made possible by IoT technology) can be spaced over 800ft apart and contain at least 16GB of flash storage each. Other solutions have all failed due to costs of over $200/node or the lack of networking capability.

Although internal communication applications minimize expensive and slow global internet connections, a “server” may be added that contains a cellular or Ethernet connection. Any device on the network will be able to access the web via the server’s connection, spreading the cost of a single data plan across an entire village. Along with a continually-updated multi-terabyte cache of educational data and programs, these two components foster economic growth and education, while significantly reducing the cost of adding future infrastructure.

Winning the top award in the largest-ever ECE Senior Design course proved that our technology works. Next, we plan to develop and trial basic functionality internationally to understand which applications could make the biggest impact.